The 8th Step on The Ladder of Awareness

Into the method: Part 2.

Notes on Today:

We jump forward by allowing ourselves to go deeper than ever before and climb the ladder past the highest rung.

I’ve kept it shorter today in hopes of giving you an even clearer picture of the process. We will be elaborating on the specifics of the process in the weeks to come.

Ruminating: What this means to me and for me…

i) It is focusing on the wrong things: We are soft-wired by habits. Many of our thoughts float freely to the surface unconsciously. When we focus our awareness on them, it becomes clear which are positive and even more so which are negative. Because of thousands of years of brain evolution, our fight or flight responses are prominent in our thoughts, we are always looking for the danger around us. We are attracted to dangers. The law of attraction teaches us that which we focus on, we attract. So, it’s natural to attract negative thoughts. Our brains are also gifted with self-awareness and creative choice. We can choose to focus on the positive. I am proving daily that being aware of your negative thoughts and seeing them as something outside reality, removes the emotional attachment to them, and weakens their power. Up until now, this spectator practice has been passive.

ii) I’ve been the spectator, not in the action: I believe I’ve known for a long time what I need to do to change my thought habits and knowing gives me the opportunity to act. Why haven’t I acted on this knowledge?

iii) I haven’t let go of what I don’t want because it’s what is known.

iv) Focusing on what I don’t want, gives me more of what is known.

v) Rumination keeps me in the comfort zone: where the spectator doesn’t need to do anything but watch. The discomfort I am now feeling in my gut at this realization is the conflict between the spectator and my active self. Time for the spectator to step aside.

Developing the best mental habits:

* Acknowledge what I don’t want and change it to what I want. This is a stimulating mental game for someone who loves language. Start by paying attention to all your negative statements and give yourself the gift of rephrasing them as positive. For example: Turn “I don’t want to be broke.” to “I am wealthy in so many ways and I am attracting more wealth to me every day.”

* Why does the intellectual challenge this presents excite me? My wife tells me I am overly in love with the specificity of words and geek out very often on how to turn a phrase in ways that amuse only me. I love language. I am taking something I already love to change a habit that holds me in the past.

* How to turn it into a positive? Simply consider the statement you make about what you dislike and ask yourself, what you are comparing it to. For example, I don’t like angry people. Changed to: I like happy people. What example can you think of that is more challenging than my simple one? Share it with us.

Process: Getting to the bottom rung of The Ladder.

Answer the following: What is my current situation?

I ruminate on what I don’t want with a belief & intention to understand it.

This serves no purpose, as it only brings their focus on what I don’t want. I don’t want something because it feels bad. So, focus on what you want instead. If it’s a task that will take you out of your comfort zone, imagine the outcome you want, how that feels, and what you want that outcome, then stop thinking about it.

Do you need to continuously remove a scab to see if the skin is healing underneath? No, then trust that the positive outcome you desire is equally healing as the formation of a scab.

What is my ideal situation?

Reacting with Spontaneous Optimism in the face of any challenge

Trusting my abilities and just going for it.

Loving the process of growing ideas that inspire people to listen and imagine with me.

What is the opposite to the ruminating mind?

The Empty Mind: The quiet moments that always seem to be present just before those awesome moments of happiness. Being.

The embracing the spark mind: The gift of readiness to receive beauty into our souls. Being.

The imagination running free mind: The presence of the flow.

Being in the flow. Being present. Being.

Describe this personality: The Ruminator

I am leaning towards describing this person as the over-thinker and the negative self-talker, but it really isn’t. The Ruminator is more the state of mind in which debate runs rampant over action and a negative self-talk personality used to win. The Ruminator is more content living in the past & future, but not the present. Being in the now requires doing, not thinking.

What is the value I give people when I’m having a peak experience?

Possibility!

In my peak state, I am experiencing enthusiasm, competence, knowledge, courage, passion, joy, & love. In these moments, I express and share these feelings. In this state, I inspire the sense of possibility.

What is my Spark?

i) The desire to be of service: After all the why’s, I want to be helpful and useful. When I feel a need, I jump to help. That feeling is my spark to action.

ii) The compulsion to share knowledge: I work hard and diligently to learn and satisfy my curiosities. Sometimes, I need to let it out. I look for every opportunity to share my knowledge. It gives me great pleasure to do so.

iii) The drive to inspire: I believe this is more about being vulnerable than anything else. I allow myself to be vulnerable to inspire comfort in others and to stimulate curiosity and interest in learning. The fact that I often let myself go on and on with a given topic, out of the deep pleasure of sharing the knowledge, reveals my drive to be intrinsic. The gift I get in return for my enthusiasm is that most people give me loving encouragement when I share.

When my imagination is sparked, I am compelled to share my experience and knowledge.

Is this true? No, not truth; it’s a conscious choice. I am fully capable of choosing to be a listener and to consider my audience first. On occasion, I give into my whim to just go for it. It doesn’t feel like rejection anymore when I see people lose interest in my train of thought. I am often equally pleased by the opportunity of learning and sharing when a change of topic is presented.

TRUTH statement: In my peak state I am sharing myself fully.

Consider:When I’m in my peak state, all my definitions of self, are not there. I am completely being. This feels very genuine. My self-definitions are my judgemental self-talks. When I’m in my peak state, they have no voice. They are not there. I am doing and my doing is being.

Four new personalities:

The Ruminator: Appears as thoughts spiral down to emotions and self-criticism.

The Observer: Needs to know Why, what’s going on here, what was that about? Is the partner of The Avoider.

The Peak Being: Is the true me, the Just do it, the Now. It’s courage, bliss, action, and being.

The Avoider: Stops the process, just before we hit the root, and starts climbing. This is frustrating. When things get scary or possibly painful, this false bravado state arises and jumps to proposing possible solutions or conclusions.

Why I’m not in my ideal situation:

1) Because I’ve let the ruminator think for me.

2) Because it’s easy for me to focus on lack (Big truth from the feelings in my gut)

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Published by The New Renaissance Mindset

When asked What I Do, I enjoy answering: “I invite people to explore the question: “Have you considered this…?”
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4 thoughts on “The 8th Step on The Ladder of Awareness”

Turning the negative thoughts on their head into positive ones is great. To speak in negative terms is to acknowledge the space of the positive as we would not know the neg without the pos. I enjoy your thought-provoking reads.